


Outlandish and Fantastic

by mobius_stripper



Series: All I Have [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1241665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mobius_stripper/pseuds/mobius_stripper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hypothetical but totally fun trope of the Avengers moving in and the shenanigans that follow.<br/>Fic universe is: set after -The Avengers, -Iron Man 3, -Thor 2, and -Captain America 2.</p><p>Finale: D.C. happens.  No one deals with it very well.<br/><em>The Line at the End</em> is now up to deal with Bucky and his assorted issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. SOP for Superheroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for various Thor films. Having only seen Thor 2 once, I am being very light on specifics.

Bruce's rooms are unopened until JARVIS sends everyone the safety protocols for various Avenger-related scenarios.  Pepper is halfway through reading the attachment for personnel active in floors 120 through 150 during business hours when Dr. Banner taps on the door frame.

"Is the suppression foam really necessary?" he asks, looking much more comfortable in his skin than before.  
Pepper flips back a few pages.  "JARVIS likes to be thorough.  And everyone likes having oxygen.  Including, I imagine, your big green friend."  
"Hasn't been tested."  
"No time like the present," Pepper says cheerfully, secure in the knowledge that since Tony can't upset him, a little gentle ribbing can only be healthy at this point.  "JARVIS lives to collect data."

Bruce doesn't have a lot of personal belongings to move into his suite.  Tony jokingly offered to let him take the little lab cot he'd been sleeping in and was mildly horrified when he was taken seriously.  Most of the stuff he has accumulated stays on the desks and chairs and filing cabinets in his side of the lab; an irregular area outlined by hazard tape on the floor.  Pepper suspects Tony delegated that particular task to Butterfingers.  

* * *

Natasha had no problems whatsoever accepting rooms in the Tower, although it takes her a month to go from accepting the rooms to moving in.  No one knows why until Tony discovers thirty security alerts that JARVIS apparently rescinded a millisecond after logging them.  Eventually Tony pulls enough information out of JARVIS to realize Agent Romanov has been making daily attempts to break into his house for mostly non-creepy reasons.  Any comments he might have about this are wisely kept to himself.  Or at least, out of earshot.

Tony either bribes someone’s grandmother or learns cross-stitch just so he can put ‘Come into my parlor..’ on the door to her suite.  Natasha likes it enough to leave it there.

-

Hawkeye moves in soon after Black Widow, but Pepper is distracted.  A familiar pain the ass is sitting by the fridge, ears dripping.  It’s lopsided and wrinkled and it smells like daffodils, so at least it’s a _clean_ giant pain in the ass.

“I know you just fixed up the place, but water damage is no joke.”  
Pepper turns.    
“Clint Barton.”  He holds out a hand.  
“Pepper Potts.”  She takes it.  “Welcome to madness.”  
“Is this another Avenger?”  He points to the looming figure, small smile tugging at his mouth.    
“It’s about to be listed as Tony Stark’s cause of death.”  Pepper goes for her forgotten salad.    
“I'd pay money to see Iron Man wrestling a giant rabbit.”    
Bruce wanders in, looking a little lost.  “There are robots mopping the lab.  Apparently Tony flooded it.”  
“So you have nothing to do?  Maybe you and Clint can go shopping, get some stuff for your rooms.”  Pepper doesn’t try very hard to be subtle, but Bruce is becoming okay with it.  

-

Later Tony sends her an annotated draft of a compact CT scanner.  There are whole conversations in the blank spaces, starting with ‘i kno its not gamma radiation, but u can do xrays, right?’ and ‘Your girlfriend is kind of scary’, ending with ‘If you don’t change my login back, I will smash your blender’ and ‘but scruffylookingnerfherder is sooo much sexier than bbanner’.

Tony comes to bed with cold, wet feet.  They end up in the shower together, and he tells her he can have the rabbit put back in the ocean if she wants.   
She doesn’t.  

* * *

Steve just dropped by for a social visit, not to join Fury’s not-so-secret boy band.  Pepper invites him in for coffee after they are introduced, which leads to small talk and then to lunch.  

Tony calls Rhodey to gloat about the _better_ national icon on his couch.  

Iron Patriot lands on the roof before Steve is halfway through his first sandwich.  Conversation quickly turns to military attitudes and the events that changed them.  Pepper is almost surprised at Tony's emotional intuition and then feels a little guilty.  Sometimes it's hard to reconcile the asshole she fell in love with and the asshole who managed to work on a team and literally save the world.

-

Steve Rogers is utterly charming because he’s so sure he’s not.  She finds him in her office a few hours later, staring at the Pollock (one of the few rescued from a Stark storage facility).  

“Do you like it?” she asks; softly, like he might spook and run.  
“It’s different.  He didn’t do the drip thing before, but the feel is similar.”  
She matches up dates mentally and tries to remember what Pollock’s earlier pieces were like, the kind Steve might have seen.  “I like having this one in my office.  Reminds me that I can always find some meaning in utter chaos.”    
He stares at the paint a few seconds longer before smiling at her.  Pepper is tempted to swoon a little, mostly so she can tease Tony later.  
“I came to ask if there was some way I could earn my keep.”  He says it like he is expecting a battle he has already fought.  “Colonel Rhodes and I talked a lot, mostly about what it would mean if I went back into the service.  I had thought that…”  He tapers off, trying to find the words.

Pepper waits for him to say that it’s one thing to defend the Earth from aliens, but fighting wars with countries that didn’t used to exist for reasons he doesn’t understand and people who will use him as a pawn above a soldier is something he can’t do.  She thinks Tony is probably both the best and worst person for Steve to talk to about these things, but she is optimistic that they will eventually sort themselves out.

“War doesn’t change much.  I don’t think I have either.  I don’t want to kill anybody. I have a history of disobeying orders to do the right thing. I'm told that’s still frowned upon, so…”  He shrugs.  He looks so terribly young and _so_ terribly old.  
“You’re a good man, Steve Rogers.”  
“I try, Miss Potts.  Which is why I won’t live off Tony’s charity or obligation or whatever it is.  It makes tactical sense for us all to be here, and I believe we will be a stronger team for it, but I was hoping you could find something I could help with.”

Pepper has a brief vision of him following her around with a palm frond, but Tony would probably install Yoo with a fan blade to take over, and that would definitely end in injury.  Instead she flicks open their latest projects to see if she can’t earn some of her exorbitant salary by problem solving for _America_.  Her eye falls on one file in particular and she has to bite her lip to keep from scaring the poor boy.    
She taps on it and invites Captain America to take a look.

-

Tony comes into her office smelling like something exploded and it kind of looks like his eyebrows are gone.  It’s hard to tell for sure because his face is covered in grease.  
“Are you missing an eyebrow?”    
“I knew you only loved me for my looks.  Did you tell Rogers about the veteran aid programs?  Because he wants my help filling out paperwork."

 


	2. Girl Talk

Natasha told Clint about Pepper’s private NDA. Or she threatened him with bodily harm.  Either way, Clint sneaks up on her during lunch with a stack of paper.    
“Some light reading for you.  Don’t spill anything on the top ones.  Originals from Puente Antiguo.  For some reason the power was very unreliable while we were there.  It was just easier to kill trees.”  He gives her a grin and steals her apple.

She lets him and starts reading.  Thor’s file is kind of thin and mostly speculative.  Dr. Selvig’s is blacked out almost entirely except for the occasional preposition. Dr. Foster’s is full of photographs because, the cyan post-it note explains, her equipment was held together with rubber bands, half of it fell apart in transit before anyone could process them properly and no one wanted to be responsible for setting space travel back another hundred years.  The green post-it remarks that Dr. Foster’s kitchen area was home to some interesting bacterial cultures that appeared unintentional.  Darcy Lewis is a one sheet printout paperclipped to the back of the folder.    
The next file is blue.  The tiny printed label is a string of alphanumerics that she has long since memorized.  The only difference is two letters at the end, TH instead of IM.  She chooses not to open it.  
The last folder describes an event in London that reads like a cross between space opera and Scooby Doo.  The pictures make it a lot less comical.  For a brief second she wishes Thor and his exterrestrial friends had never come to her planet.  But it’s too late now.  

She selects a few pages and has JARVIS make electronic copies to send to Tony.

Tony entices her down to the workshop to discuss what it would take to kidnap an astrophysicist and her helper gnome.  When she gets there she finds that Tony already set up interviews with both Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis and he only lured her here to traumatize the robots.  They almost end up traumatizing Bruce too, but he and Butterfingers are too busy playing with the centrifuge to pay attention.

* * *

Dr. Foster is understandably leery of letting Tony Stark within three feet of her technology.  It doesn’t help that Tony keeps reaching for it when he should be pitching the good doctor.  Finally Darcy moves and positions herself to block Tony’s line of sight to the magical science sticks.  The sticker on her slightly-too-small shirt says ‘Hi, My Name is **tased thor and proud of it** ’. Tony throws a quick glance at Pepper and makes a very wise choice to studiously avoid looking anywhere near that side of the room for the rest of the interview.

Pepper isn’t wearing a particularly intimidating power suit today, and despite the distractions, Dr. Foster has managed to pick up on the fact that the business face of Stark Industries hasn’t said anything about commercialization, patents or the usual crap, only the weather and how inferior British coffee is.    
Tony has already given up on the science sticks and is poking around on a tablet, probably trying to hack into Dr. Foster’s email.  The fact that Tony Stark doesn’t actually give a flying fuck in space about her work now that he’s seen it is probably what gets her to powwow with Darcy in the corner instead of kicking them out of her very tiny office.

“Dude, it’s Tony Stark.  He’s probably designing his own right now.  Besides, it is the prerogative of wealthy people like him to throw money at poor people like you in the name of Science.”  
“Last time something too good to pass up happened to me, I got sent to Norway and aliens attacked New York.”  
“And you missed your otherworldly lovestallion.  I can see how that would make you a little bitter, but that’s no reason not to take the grant money.  And the apartment in New York.  Where the Avengers live.  And bring your intern.”  
“Ian is not part of this deal.”  
“That’s okay.  I can hire an intern anywhere.”  Darcy stares back at Jane defiantly.  “What! We can’t all strike gold when we hook up with a guy under the influence of adrenaline and potential world-ending!  I’m at a different point in my life.  A point where I live with the Avengers.  And help you with Science.”  
Jane sighs.    
“No offense to you or Thor, but if he’s going to keep bringing his friends to our planet, I would prefer to be closer to the Avengers.  It’s where all the Science is,” she sing-songs.    
“Considering how little you know about science, that line shouldn’t work as well as it does,” grumbles Jane.    
Tony, who has been shamelessly eavesdropping, throws his arms open.  “Welcome to Stark, ladies.  Tell me what you need shipped.”

* * *

Pepper assigns homework-to-be-done-on-the-plane in the form of reviewing safety protocols and blueprints.  There is a panic room under Stark Tower where no matter what happens in the streets of Manhattan its occupants will be safe.  Darcy and Jane have to know the best way to get to this room from wherever they might be before they are allowed to set foot in the Tower.

Pepper spends another hour interviewing Darcy on the plane, trying not to think about what Tony is getting up to in the kitchen.  Darcy fangirls a little bit, because Pepper Potts is one of the best things to happen to feminism this century, and aside from some hipster/young adult colloquialisms, Darcy Lewis is bright and articulate and Pepper deems her an asset.  Dr. Foster still has reservations, but it doesn’t take Darcy long to persuade her that SI is better than SHIELD or independent-poverty.  The jury is still out on whether Thor is better than Iron Man.  The major difference being that Iron Man doesn’t have a cape and Darcy holds Edna Mode on a higher pedestal than anyone besides Morgan Freeman.

When Darcy sees the panic room, and the Lichtenstein in it, she understands that it is literally the safest place on earth, because it was designed by Tony Stark for Pepper Potts.  The only problem is that she and Jane have a history of going toward trouble and not away from it.  
She gets the sense that most people associating with the Avengers have the same problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor is going to need something a little more discreet than a rainbow bridge to get around in NYC. Like a pimped out goat-chariot.
> 
> I only saw Thor 2 once, but will probably view it more often soon thanks to the power of Netflix. And 'cross between space opera and Scooby Doo' is exactly what I thought of all that transdimensional cavorting.


	3. Separate Genius Enclosures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stark Lab/zoo now welcomes its newest addition, astrophysicist grumpus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title callback to Negative Space.   
> lack of writing has mostly been due to the boyfriend requiring a lot of supervision for his many and varied mental health issues.

As Darcy explains, cheerfully violating any SHIELD-mandated confidentiality instructions, the good news is that the Bifrost is fully armed and operational, so when Thor finishes cleaning up his family's assorted messes, he can beam down and hang out in two shakes of a goat's tail.  The bad news is that the Bifrost doesn't appear to be the only method of interstellar/transdimensional travel and there is no guarantee Asgard's all-seeing eyes can catch every threat now.  Tony and Pepper have a hard time believing Jane's description of Asgard and it's inhabitants, but there is no doubt she is the only credible authority on the matter.  Even if she has a crockpot full of crackpot theories.  Literally.  Jane doesn't cook, and the fact that it had a lid made it the perfect repository for the pile of napkins, receipts and at least two place mats covered in ballpoint.  

Jane is still giving the head of Stark Industries (and her boyfriend) unhappily confused looks despite Darcy trying to lighten the mood, so Pepper sits her down in her shiny new lab, shoos everyone else away and asks if she wants to go back to London.

"I don't want to, but 50% of me says I should," she admits.  "You only want me here because of Thor.  And you only want Darcy here because of me.  Considering what happened to Eric, I am willing to hide behind Iron Man's money if it means SHIELD can't bother me, but I want to know now what exactly this money is for."  
Pepper doesn't bother telling her Tony will actually give her a million dollars just to see what she does with it, or that he once gave a 10 year old boy a garage full of toys as a thank you.  "You're researching portals, right?  Portals like the one Iron Man flew into and almost didn't come out of.  Believe me when I say that when a line of research coincides with a real-world need like this one, Stark can find the money.  Yes, Thor is a major part of the decision, but you were studying space long before he showed up.  And we need more people with your experience because... well, you know why.  Since there's only one of you, the next best thing is to give you all the resources we can.  Dr. Selvig has been extended an invitation to join the team, of course, but you will be the lead.  It's your research that started it all, your ideas and your work, so we're hoping that access to other minds and many hands will lead to answers before the questions have to be asked."   
Jane looks much less rebellious now.  "I'd lead the team?"  
"You have published papers, years of research and firsthand experience with wormholes.  Can you think of anyone else with better qualifications?"  Pepper doesn't wait for an answer.  "Do you know what your first project will be?"  
Jane's eyes light up.  "I have my readings for the Bifrost and Convergence classification portals.  Who do I talk to about the one in New York?  Eric's data is completely anecdotal and he doesn't really like talking about that week in general.  If I can find something all three have in common, maybe we can create a detection device to collect data when the next one appears."  
Pepper's jaw drops a little but before she regains her composure, Darcy pops up behind Jane.  "It would _also_ be nice if this device had some kind of alarm system and the Avengers knew about it, because the next thing that comes from outer space is not going to be as benign or bodacious as Thor."  
"I'll call Dr. Banner.  He's more likely to have something written down than Tony.  Welcome to Stark, ladies."

Dr. Banner does have a notebook on the Tesseract, but he confesses that he wasn't really in a position to observe and measure the actual portal.  Jane isn't fazed.  They remind her of Tony right now, not focused, but with a direction in which to sow chaos and reap results.  Bruce doesn't even blink when Jane starts fishing around in her crockpot for her theory on the displaced energy from wormholes being the source of cosmic rays hitting Earth.

* * *

 

A month later Pepper finds Darcy in a fit of giggles behind a filing cabinet in Bruce's corner of the lab on her way out with Tony, who is five hours late for their lunch date.  She represses them immediately when she sees her boss's bosses.  
"What's funny?" Tony asks.  Darcy gestures behind her and walks with them into the new build-space.  
"Steve is perfect," Jane sighs dreamily.  
"He certainly is," remarks Darcy, still trying not to laugh.  "Although I'm pretty sure we disagree on  _why_."  Jane merely appreciates that Steve is the perfect height for fifty pounds of machinery to rest comfortably on.  Darcy appreciates what holding up fifty pounds of machinery does for Captain America’s biceps.

“Don’t breathe too hard,” instructs Jane, climbing onto her chair so she can mess with the stuff above his head.    
“Jane’s equipment can and will fail if you look at it wrong,” explains Darcy, either to Steve or to her boss(es), it isn’t clear.  “So when she says don’t breathe too hard, she’s not kidding.  She once beat me with a wrench when I got too close with the sniffles.”  
“It slipped out of my hand!”  
“She says.”    
“Why is Steve Jane’s new bitch?” asks Tony.  
“Because Jane forgot Behemoth needed a scanner and she couldn’t wait ten minutes for me to find or order the correct length of cable and Steve happened to be walking by.  Hence,” she gestures expansively.  “I’m calling it _Science Holding Up More Science_.”  
“We’ll take two,” Tony declares, snapping a picture of Steve’s scowl.

Butterfingers rolls up with a bright orange coil of plastic.  Darcy checks the ends of the cable and compares it to the picture on her tablet before putting it in front of Butterfingers’ camera.    
“Dude, I don’t claim to know a lot about hardware, but I’m pretty sure if I show you a square thingy, you should at least not return with a round thingy.”  
Butterfingers droops.  She takes a discreet picture of Steve and pats him on the claw.  “Don’t worry, we’re cool.”

Bruce appears from behind the aptly named Behemoth.  “Satellite uplink is live.  Um.”  His brow wrinkles in confusion and/or concern.  “No one found you a ladder or something?”  
Jane makes a noise of derision and pulls a screwdriver out of her pocket.  
“I’m given to understand it’s not science if you can’t get hurt,” Pepper remarks, perching on the table while Tony rolls up his sleeves and starts interrogating Bruce.  “Tony.  Go find something so Steve isn’t stuck like this all night.”  
Tony mumbles something like ‘slave driver’ and Bruce coughs.  Tony whips his head around and growls something rude.

“What are they building?” asks Pepper.  
“Something something space radiation,” answers Darcy.  “Apparently there’s a difference between the local particles and the out-of-towners. io9 had this article, which admittedly was kiddied up for laughs, but it linked to the abstract, and it was saying that space rays are so much more powerful than the average bear, they have actual mass as opposed to the effectively massless stuff we get dirtside.  And if they have mass, they can totally knock out electrons from where they’re supposed to be, and somehow that could give us wormholes.  I stopped trying to figure out the in-between steps after half an hour.”  
Pepper frowns.  Darcy may have only been brought here so Jane would have less ground to refuse, but Pepper hates to see anyone being paid to be bored.  
"Is it usually like that for you?"  
"Now.  Jane has five supergeeks doing whatever she needs downstairs so I don't want to slow her down by making her explain to me what alpha matter is.  I did figure out that if I ask Jarvis nicely, he will kill the lights and lock the computers so no one can do work until after everyone showers and sleeps and that raises productivity for the next day.  I'm not actually sure Jane knows there's an A.I. in the ceiling, or if she just thinks Bruce has a very helpful British personality next to the green one."   
"Would you like to work for me instead babysitting the scientists?"  
To her credit, Darcy says 'yes, absolutely' instead of 'doing what?'.


	4. Helper-Gnome Union Cards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still in the pre-Captain America 2 universe.

"I'm kind of glad she stole you," admits Jane.  "I like you and you helped with my research unpaid but..."  
"But you've bonded with Dr. Banner and replaced me with the robot that thinks he's a dog."  
"Butterfingers at least knows the difference between a voltmeter and an empty pack of crimp ons."  
"Well... that's what you get for making me work on your non-existent sleep schedule."  
"Like Pepper Potts needs sleep either. So what's your new job going to be like?"  
"Helper-gnome extraordinaire.  Probably be managing the most powerful woman in the world's schedule so she has time to make out with her superhero boyfriend.  Same thing I was doing for you, now that I think about it, except I won't have to force Miss Potts to take a shower after a week and a half of camping in the van because she'd rather enter data."

-

The first thing Miss Potts makes Darcy do is read a pile of paper; 60% of which is the Stark packet for working with the most important people in the company on a daily basis.  The rest is on SHIELD letterhead, which is weird because Darcy was under the impression that working for Stark would mean at least three degrees of Kevin Bacon between her and any type of government agency.  Careful reading shows that it's _better_ than never having to see a jackbooted thug ever again.  Stark has  _leverage_ with King Jackbooted Thug and her new job might result in liaising directly with the Suits on official Avenger business.  Since 'liaising with' is higher up than 'being harassed by', she has to give the government a metric shit-ton of information she doesn't really want on record as 'by her own admission'.    
She's still staring at the mostly blank SHIELD forms when Pepper comes back with her current assistant, Natalie.  Natalie looks very competent, but Darcy doubts the redhead could ever tase anyone.  She probably won't mind sharing the workload with her while Darcy learns the ropes.  Pepper looks at the stack of already signed and initialed SI paperwork and asks with sympathy, "Resting your hand?"  
"Ye-es." Darcy draws out the word, but can't bring herself to lie to her boss before she even gets the job.  "Do I really have to fill out all the SHIELD stuff?  Some of it is kind of creepily personal."  
Pepper turns to Natalie.  "Does she need to answer everything?"    
Natalie shrugs.  "Any information SHIELD  _needs_ is not generally collected on a form.  If anything, blindly answering questions just because a piece of paper has a poorly drawn eagle on it is a reason to stick you in Florida and never let you back."  She picks up the top sheet and starts folding it into a plane.  
"Agent Hill said she needed these before Miss Lewis would be given clearance."  If Natalie were a normal person, she would be shaking in her very cute boots at the look on Pepper's face.  Darcy is.  
"Lewis has clearance.  Very low clearance, but if events in New Mexico or London had required her to be brought to a SHIELD facility, she would have been confined to a room with one guard outside and no restraints."  Natalie licks her thumb and runs it down the last fold in her paper fighter jet.  "No clearance is a room with two guards inside, handcuffed to the table and a bag over your head.  FYI."  
Pepper narrows her eyes and shifts her weight to her right.  "Well, before your employment is terminated, you have one last errand.  Please run over to SHIELD and make sure Miss Lewis has the _appropriate_ access for her position.  And while you're there, return Agent Hill's paperwork.  Preferably on fire."  
Darcy tries not to look very lost during this exchange, but she thinks she's losing that battle.  
Natalie offers her a hand.  "Agent Natasha Romanov.  You may call me Natasha."

* * *

Turns out, as a former helper-gnome herself, Pepper has lots of useful tips.  

Like, any meeting than can be avoided was not nearly as necessary as the other guy thinks it is.  Darcy has all manner of tactics to get Pepper out of 40 of the 50 meeting requests she gets every day.  Her favorite is repeating back what she is told, but with a heavy inflection of sarcasm that she adamantly denies when the inevitable complaints come. The organizational skills that come of sorting through astrophysics crap in a confined space are invaluable, as is her ability to roll with the metaphorical punches.    
Darcy had always thought CEOs only chiefly executed stuff in between rounds of golf and five star restaurants, but Pepper was either very very different or movies have lied to her.  Sometimes Pepper will travel to Paris so she can sit down and discuss business strategies for the next fiscal year (in fluent French), but mostly people just seem to present her with ideas and/or justifications and ask for meetings.  Darcy doesn’t even know what they want the meetings for, but her main thing is doing what Pepper tells her to do.  A lot of what Pepper tells her to do involves keeping the Avengers happy.  Or at least, not-unhappy. 

So Darcy can feed Thor while explaining the difference between the British monarchy and the U.S. version of democracy.  Darcy can buy incense and Yanni CDs for Dr. Banner as a joke, but bagels and John Grisham novels more than make up for it.  Bruce isn't even sure how she found out he liked them.  Darcy can build a trebuchet out of office supplies and challenge Clint to contests.  And Darcy can maintain full conversations with a Sean Connery impression that leaves Natasha indulgently amused rather than offended.  There are two things Darcy can't do. 

Darcy can't get _If I Could Turn Back Time_ out of her head when she sees Captain America, so she tries very hard not to talk to him at all ever.  Because offending a national icon isn't just treasonous, it's just plain mean.

And Darcy can't be Pepper Potts. 

-

Darcy turns the corner to the CEO office and hits the brakes as hard as humanly possible.  The CEO is kneeling, half inside the receptionist's desk, with her boyfriend face down in her lap.  She runs her fingers through his hair with such calm love on her face that Darcy flinches, because this is so much more intimate than sex.

"I fix stuff, Pepper," the muffled voice bores into Darcy's brain.  "I fix stuff but I can't fix this.  I have all these triggers... right? that's what it's called, isn't it.  I thought they were gone because I _live_ here now, less than a mile under the... thing, and nine times out of ten, someone says 'alien' I think Sigourney Weaver has aged amazingly well.  I am never going to fix it, so don't pretend like therapy helps just because _this_ only happens one out of ten instead of one out of three.  You don't know what's it like... you're sitting here like you understand and you don't and I love you but I can't do this.  You're just _sitting_ there, waiting for this to be over and it's never going to be over."  
"I am sitting here waiting for an anxiety attack to be over, because it will be soon. And when the next one comes, I'll sit with you until that's over too."  She taps her fingers slowly, deliberately, one after the other, on the metal drawer next to them.  _Tik tik tik tik_.  _Tik tik tik tik_.  Tony reluctantly slows his breathing to inhale, hold and exhale, four counts each even if he's still shaking.  "This is still better than the time you didn't tell me you were dying," she adds.

Darcy backs herself away as quietly as she can while the tapping echoes around slightly hysterical laughter.  


	5. Stacked Damage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sometimes play Pathfinder, where damage from different sources adds up.

Pepper is in Japan to discuss a collaboration project at Tokyo University.  Darcy goes with because Pepper needs someone to pay attention to the rest of the world while she is in negotiations without her phone.  The boss is still a little on edge, and Darcy is too scared to admit she knows why.  It's not like Pepper Potts would fire her because she found out Tony Stark is still a hot mess in a tin can.  Probably.

Darcy's Starktech tablet, affectionately dubbed Stablet, is a testament to how much Darcy wants to keep this job.  She doesn't even care that she can't remove the Jarvis app Skynetting everything she does to the main Jarvis in New York.  Her internet history is less shameful than ever before and shows how much she's been reading the news, even if it _is_ mostly about her employers.  She wants to earn her title of helper-gnome extraordinaire, so her main profile is tagged to all kinds of Stark-related feeds. 

Which is how, by asking if there's anything special she needs done for today, Darcy actually manages to surprise Pepper.   
"Like what?" Pepper stares like she isn't sure which one is of them is being stupid.  
"I can have someone send flowers unless you want to do that in person after the trip.  I mean..."  At Pepper's blank look, Darcy flails.  "For Mr. Stane?"  
"Oh!"  The blank look does a series of rapid contortions.  "No.  That won't be necessary.  I'll... make arrangements myself."  She pulls out her phone then remembers that she's sixteen hours ahead of Tony, and even if he's awake right now, he shouldn't have to deal with this until the sun is up.  "What's on the agenda for today?"  
"Umm.  You're going to be at Stark Japan all day.  Mr. Mikawa was going to take you to a tea ceremony place after."  
Pepper Potts crinkles her nose at the thought of kneeling on the floor for an hour to admire the way some woman mixes tea.  Much as she loves Japan for it's minimalist tastes and functional art, some of the traditions are terribly clunky.  An idea and a memory collide in her head so she makes a very urgent call to the concierge.

She probably reinforces the idea that she is just as crazy as Tony.  She doesn’t care.  She makes Darcy take the jet back to New York with a beautiful piece of kintsugi.  It’s elegant and understated and Tony will probably hate it, but he will at least read the lovely card that goes with the cup explaining the process of repairing broken pottery with gold.  He’s a genius so he should be able to grasp the subtext, but just in case Darcy can explain it to him.

She will get a text from him eight hours later that only says 'naked sushi: yes or yes???'.

* * *

With everything else that has happened in the world, it's hard to believe Obadiah Stane 'mysteriously vanished over the Pacific ocean' five years ago and it's not that big a deal.  It's a relief for Tony that he can just hide in his lab with with his bots.  And Bruce.  Bruce doesn't really count because lately Bruce spends most of his time educating Jane on the finer points of radiation safety.  Not that Tony blames him.  Jane's combination of academic arrogance and total disregard for external forces has sent something expensive crashing to the ground at least once every day.  Usually it's Butterfingers.

Tony hasn't forgiven himself for getting grease and bodily fluids on Pepper in the middle of work yet, but at least the soul-crushing helplessness is gone today.  Mostly.  He might have faked a little because Pepper shouldn't be worrying about Iron Man crashing and burning (figuratively) all the goddamn time.  It's not like Dummy's chronic case of useless; it's just a glitch that occasionally affects his very heroic efforts to function.  He absently fingers the round scar on his wrist, feels the edge of the implant press against the muscle, before moving up his arm to the next.  Pepper never comments on the world sickest rosary ritual, one reason why he loves her.

Another reason waltzes into his lab as he considers giving up on the repulsors to bother Bruce.    
"Miss Lewis is here to see you," announces Jarvis, completely unnecessarily.  
"She can't be in here.  It says 'geniuses and bots only' on the door."  
"I'm better than a genius.  I have Miss Potts' permission and a present."  Darcy manages a decent imitation of trumpet fanfare as she takes the very important, one-of-a-kind, not-finished-yet prototype from his hand and replaces it with a cup and a card.  Tony fingers the smooth gold web as he reads the card before looking up at Darcy.  
"Miss Potts said that if you missed the subtext, I should spell it out for you.  I'll just need a minute to make some visual aids."  
"You can go away now, I get the subtext."  
Darcy nods but doesn't leave.  "Did you... I don't know, did you want to talk about it?"  
"No."  Tony turns back to his prototype.  If he keeps ending up in freezing conditions, like Tennessee and outer space, some way to isolate the circuits from moisture is definitely necessary.  He tamps down the memories of the ocean and the inside of an alien life form, both extenuating but no longer unlikely circumstances.  
"Okay.  ...It's not healthy to keep that shit bottled up."  
"So I've been told."  
"Sure."  Darcy turns.  "My aliens were creepier than yours."  With that, she sees herself out.

Darcy stops by Jane's lab to cheer herself up a bit.  Behemoth is bigger than ever, and she has no idea how any of the assorted consoles, monitors and sticking-out-bits are holding together.  Industrial grade rubber bands probably.  And Butterfingers.  Who is clamping a panel, absolutely still while Bruce connects yet more things.    
"Hi!" she chirps.  Jane's pack of interns are terrified of being in the big lab because Jane makes so many sudden movements and unreasonable demands around Dr.-Banner-who-turns-into-the-Hulk-when-he's-pissed (which he hasn't done yet).  If that's their attitude, it's probably better they stay in their hole and collect data from the teams in the field anyway.    
"Hello."  Dr. Banner actually stops fiddling and turns around to greet her.  "I thought you were in Japan."  
"Let it never be said I was thwarted by a few thousand miles of water.  Bosslady asked me to bring something to Tony. And I got an entire plane to myself.  No one says no to that.  Is Jane around?"    
Bruce opens his mouth, then peers around.  "Huh.  Jarvis?"  
"Dr. Foster is in the supply room.  She might benefit from some assistance."  Jarvis probably doesn't have a polite way of saying 'genius is trapped under a box' so he doesn't offer any more details.   
Butterfingers sags, like he's about to go rescue Jane, and the Behemoth starts beeping and flashing red lights.  Bruce curses in some foreign language and nudges the robot back into position.  
No one notices Darcy go into a five-second coma, her last conscious being thought that angry aliens are to about appear from under the desk. 

She really misses having Thor around.


	6. The Raggedy Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here's us, on the raggedy edge.  
> -Serenity (2005)

Jane, when she finally emerges with a box bigger than herself, is absently happy to see her.  She probably doesn't remember that Darcy is supposed to be in another country.  It's so nice to be wanted.    
"So when is Thor coming back?"  Darcy tries for casual, but if she falls a little short, Jane's enthusiasm about her second favorite person fills the gap (her first favorite person is Maria Goeppert).  
"Soon."    
"And you're still building this?  How are you going to compare your space ray data to his if you haven't even collected it yet?  He _is_ bringing data right?  I distinctly remember you telling him to do this in between snog sessions."  
"I have data!  The satellite has been measuring radiation and sending the numbers back to us for weeks.  And Thor said he'd get Heimdall to record the Earth-time of each event using Big Ben.  He really liked Big Ben.  His house has a quantum field generator, and he's impressed with an over-sized clock.  Oh right.  The rest of this is for something else.  When Thor arrives."  Jane's (metaphorically) glowing with excitement.  "Wasn't able to get any readings the last few times the Bifrost opened up on Earth, so we're not making that mistake again.  We're not just _detecting_ anomalies any more, Darcy, we're going to break down those anomalies and figure out the hows and why.   _Faster than light travel_ , can you believe it.  We could find and define actual tachyons."  Jane continues at length, not noticing her ex-intern backing away and heading for the other, saner genius.  
"Does Thor need to appear next to this thing for it to work?" Darcy asks Bruce.  "Because I don't think we're getting it through the doors and I don't want to be the one to tell her that."  
"It did occur to us in week 6. That-" he points to a big square lump "- is going to be on the roof.  We had to requisition a lot of extension cords."  
"Bet the interns are _thrilled_."  Darcy doesn't hide a little happy wiggle because she isn't one of them any more.  
Bruce's lip twitches up, and she has  _no_ idea how the geeks are still scared of him.  "Twenty bucks says we have to replace them all a week after Thor touches down."

* * *

One of Jane's minions pads over and puts a hard drive on his desk.  She looks a little sick.  Tony considers welding his door shut.  
"What's this?"  
"The data you requested," she says, skittering away before Tony can point out he requests a lot of things and can't be expected to remember them all.  Tony stares, then shrugs and pushes his prototype back a few inches to plug in the hard drive.  He puts the new cup carefully in the center of the desk where stray bots can't get to it.  
"Jarvis?"    
"Security scan complete.  Beginning download.  File properties indicate this is the information from the Joint Dark Energy Matter Facility you requested from Director Fury."  
"Didn't he say something like 'fuck off'?"  
"Indeed, sir.  You bribed Agents Barton and Romanov to get it for you by upgrading their arsenal."  
"I let two superspies have an arsenal in my home.  I must be crazy...  Don't say a goddamn word, J."  
"I wouldn't dream of it.  Download complete."  The drive directory shutters into view above the only clear section of his desk.  
There are dozens of video files, named with strings that don't even have JDEM in them, so how Agents Barton or Romanov knew this is what he wanted is a mystery.  There are mercifully fewer data files, standard naming convention, all created by eselvig (who clearly didn't have the patience for any superspy security bullshit).  He selects the odd man out, a video created this morning in a higher resolution than the others.  

The projection on the wall shows Jane's nerd herd found the view from ground zero, matched up the energy readings to the real time footage and recorded the whole screen while both played through.  Tony stops paying attention to the energy spikes when the Tesseract gets bigger by folding into itself.  Then it spits out a Norse god.  The massacre that follows has him pressing a fist to his chest and there is a second of white panic when he doesn't feel a hard metal frame.  It's actually a relief when both the cameras and the CMS machines, still faithfully recording, get destroyed in the blue-tinged shitstorm.  
"-Sir?  Do you need me to call for assistance?  Sir?"   
The pounding in his ears subsides slowly as Tony finally becomes aware that Jarvis is calling him.  
"I'm fine."  His nails are carving trenches in his palm, but he might not be lying about this.  Like poking stitches with a screwdriver, he thinks about the portal, with its flaring edges and someone else's stars.  It doesn't send him wheezing to the floor.  He thinks about Loki appearing from the tear in space, and there is only some completely justifiable anger and a little violence.  He thinks about the way Barton's eyes went black and he feels a rush of cold in his stomach.  Tony decides he feels sick for humanist reasons and not still-crazy-broken reasons.  Definite improvement.  "Send it all to Foster.  Just try not to let her play it around Hawkeye."

* * *

"Retirement doesn't seem to agree with you."   
Steve looks over at Natasha, who he had thought was minding her own business, something involving a yoga ball.  "I'm not retired.  I just... All wars end eventually.  It's been... hard to adapt to civilian life.  Much less civilian life as a rich man's permanent guest."  
"Would you like to come back to SHIELD?  Director Fury has asked me to sound you out."  Natasha keeps her eyes on the lovely view outside the window.  "There are plenty of threats already on Earth that don't need the full force of the Avengers to handle.  It would be nice to know you're on the team."    
Steve does appreciate her being blunt, and he knows better than to think the Black Widow did it by accident, but she sounds _so_ sincere.  And... if he's honest with himself, he would rather be in the field doing the things he's good at.  If someone else were Captain America, had done all the things he's done, Steve Rogers would say hands down that guy _deserved_ to live in a room that put the Rockefellers to shame and do nothing but live the good life for the rest of his days.  But it's not someone else.  Steve has done a lot of good things for the world, but those things weren't Catholic and they weigh on him.  

The problem with SHIELD, even if it is Howard Stark's other legacy, is the way they treat information like a privilege.  It's always necessary to a certain degree, but given how Phase 2 went, 'need to know' is a slippery slope Steve doesn't want to put himself on.    
"And you haven't made this offer to anyone else because-?"  
"Because Captain America understands chain of command.  You don't have to follow every order you get, but you are the only one here who respects that higher-ups are higher up for a reason.  And I know firsthand, SHIELD won't punish you for disobeying if a) you have good reason and b) it doesn't blow up in your face.  Just ask Hawkeye.  Right?"  She calls up to the obstacle course in the ceiling.  
"I did have a good reason," Clint allows.  "But no one has ever said recruiting you didn't blow up in my face.  Pretty sure I didn't get any formal disciplinary action because I already had _you_."    
Natasha blows Clint a kiss before turning back to him.  "There's no rush, Steve.  Just think about it.  The world always needs saving."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Throwing science words around like I actually did well in Physics class.  
> And trying to stuff Steve back into the canon.


	7. Half Truth Kool-aid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> adding a little Agents of SHIELD for flavor. spoilers for the first episode.

Pepper arrives at the Stark facility in L.A. exactly as scheduled.  Partly it's to reminisce, mostly it's to remind everyone there that they have not escaped official oversight.  She checks on the team working with/for the NASA-DOD joint program and congratulates them for the patents they've been awarded.  They thank her and admit they couldn't have done it without the Lockheed Martin folks, but don't tell them that.

Pepper comes back from a nice lunch with the VPs and gets kidnapped just as she's waking her computer.  This shouldn’t be a thing any more, but the woman blocking the door has a centipede burning through her sleeve and she glows with sickening familiarity.  The hovering aircraft blows out the window, putting a line of bullet holes in her Rothko, one of the few pieces to escape the Boy Scout Incident.  For that, Pepper elbows centipede woman in the face and breaks the bitch’s nose.  It doesn’t do much beside make her feel better on a personal level.  The bone and cartilage knit back even as she is thrown into the plane.   

Pepper doesn’t know if she’s being taken as the CEO of Stark Industries, Iron Man’s girlfriend or the only successfully stabilized Extremis subject.  She doesn’t know which one is worst.  She's more angry than afraid anyway, because she knows what disappearing means to Tony Stark.

-

Steve is wrapping Tony's hands for a quick round of training.  Miss Potts had asked him very nicely if he would mind walking the genius every now and then and of course he said 'it would be a pleasure, ma'am'.  Mostly it is, just Tony wearing himself out on the pads; sometimes Mr. Stark likes to cheat when he thinks Steve isn't paying attention.  

Jarvis interrupts to tell them that the alarms are going off at the SI facility in Los Angeles and the 911 calls mention an aircraft firing on the building.  The computer pours as much anxiety into its/his voice as possible as it adds that Miss Potts' cellphone is in her office.  Tony doesn't need any more information than that.  He runs for the landing pad, yelling for Jarvis to cue up the suit, shaking the bandages off his hands.  

Steve just watches, still in a kind of stupor, as Iron Man careens into the hallway shedding gauze, like the world's craziest spider.  Then he realizes Jarvis has just implied Miss Potts is the target of the attack, so he throws off the padded vest and face-guard and chases after Tony.  He doesn't know if he can help but he can keep Tony from flying off without a plan. _  
_

It turns out Steve needn't have worried.  Barton is sitting on Tony, telling him to calm the fuck down first, rescue the missus after.  Tony isn't having it, but they both freeze when the phone on the floor crackles.  
"Agent Barton?"  
"Here."  Clint reaches over to pick up the phone and push Speaker.  "I'm calling in a 246 at Stark Industries Los Angeles, about five? minutes ago.  Do we have any agents on-site?"  
"Negative.  Facility has no research or personnel on watch.  I'm pulling up the police scanner...  S.W.A.T. is clearing the first floor."  
"Pepper's office is on the third floor! and she hasn't called me yet," Tony coughs out.  
"Is that Tony Stark?" asks the voice on the other end.  
"You bet.  So tell me you're sending a team right now."  
"ETA five minutes.  Call you in ten.  And Barton, the next time you put me on speaker without authorization, I will shove a flash bomb so far up your ass..."  Clint hangs up.  
"I'll take this in private.  Captain Rogers, don't let this very distraught civilian do anything stupid until I come back."  
Tony sits up, rubbing his ribs, but he makes no move to stand.

Clint comes back seventeen long minutes later looking grim.  "We believe the attack was orchestrated and carried out by a terrorist group SHIELD is currently tracking.  Techs got hold of the security footage, took a little longer than usual-" he gives Tony an ironic bow, "-and identified one member by her tattoo.  SHIELD has dispatched a team familiar with this organization, and I have been asked to request that you  _do not_ fly to California."  Tony growls rebelliously.  "Look, you can go if you want, but it'll take you hours to get there, and when you do they're not going to talk to you.  I know you won't take that well, meaning everyone's time will be wasted measuring dicks.  Especially Pepper's.  Her time... not her dick."  
"Stop feeding me your half-truth Kool-aid, Barton," Tony snarls.  "You and Danger Spice are going to knock me out before I get to my suit because there's more to this 'terrorist cell' that SHIELD doesn't want anyone to know."    
Hawkeye doesn't react.  "Not every terrorist cell lives in the desert.  And SHIELD is better equipped to handle this one than you right now."

* * *

Pepper expects to be saved within three hours of being loaded into the second truck.  She doesn't expect Phil Coulson in a cherry red Corvette to be one doing the saving.  Once she gets over that part, the ‘clearance’ and ‘technically dead’ bullshit he gives her is just a formality and the debriefing on the Bus turns into friendly, level 7 catching up.  It's actually kind of reassuring to know Phil's in charge of the team monitoring potential superheroes/putting down potential supervillains.  

Someone finds her a spare laptop so she can email Tony.   _Catching a ride home with the nice_   _agent.  You better be there when I land._ She smiles at Agent Coulson when she's done.  “I didn't think SHIELD’d come until after we got to the villainous lair.”   
He shrugs slightly.  “We didn't want to risk anyone having a stable sample of Extremis and be unable to contain the situation.”  Which is probably SHIELD-speak for ‘no one fucks with my friends’.   
“Phil.  You didn't just show up because I got kidnapped.  Am I supposed to tell them about... you?”  There’s no need for her to clarify who ‘them’ is.  
Phil sighs.  “Short answer is no.  Romanov and Barton already have the clearance.  The rest of the Avengers are level 3; SHIELD will only liaise with them when there is a threat they need to be aware of.”  
“So you don't think they need to be aware of you?”  
“They needed me to be dead.  They don't need me to be alive."  There's a soft beep from his pocket.  He steps out of the room to confer briefly with another agent before sitting back down.  "We haven't found anything of concern among your employees to suggest a connection with the attack.  Not unexpected, this visit of yours wasn't exactly a state secret.  We have other leads to follow.  Don't worry, we'll handle it."  
Pepper feels a slight twinge of guilt for the company-wide violations of privacy going on here, but given how many people in her life have turned out to be homicidal maniacs in their spare time, she's kind of relieved SHIELD is doing the dirty work.    
Also, she has a history of letting men who come back from death get away with a lot.


	8. Nothing Else Going For You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh continuity. IM2 Fury said he had 'bigger problems in the Southwest region' and then days later dispatched Coulson to go deal with them, when in Thor Coulson is the one to find the hammer and Thor is still the unknown-hobo-in-the-hospital. What problems does he have before these things? Counterfeit pottery?  
> Unless that dud eye is also crystal ball, someone fucked up the timeline, so I'm just going to run it the way I want to.

SHIELD trusts Agent Coulson.  Phil trusts Pepper.  Pepper trusts Phil, but she trusts her house full of superheroes too, so she chooses to tell them about the woman but not the team who rescued her.  SHIELD will have to mend its bridges with the Avengers on its own time.  There's no doubt they will, sooner rather than later.    
Having never been on this end of a 'mission', Pepper tries her best to explain events in a logical if somewhat omissive fashion.

Bruce refills her cup with tea whenever she takes a sip, which is as comforting as it is awkward.  Tony and Steve keep throwing Clint _looks_ , Tony's are dark and hostile, but Steve's are calculating.  Natasha and Clint are sitting at the kitchen island, pretending they can't hear her breaking a pound of rules.  Their 'excuse' for hanging around is a card game with no observable rules, being played for loose change and candy.    
Darcy is still fielding calls about the attack, kidnapping and subsequent rescue.  Jane took one look at the mood in the common room and chose to keep her friend company.

"You don't think she was the only one, do you?"  Steve keeps his voice even.  
"I don't know what it is about supersoldiers, but people always seem to want an army of them." she replies, with a slightly watery smile.  "I get the sense this group doesn't care how many people they have to throw at the problem to solve it."  
Captain Rogers looks around, assessing the people at the coffee table.  Pepper can guess what he sees.  Three of the four of them have been on the business end of an 'enhancement' experiment and the fourth mass-produced flying armor in his basement.  
"The bad guys are catching up."  Natasha says to her bag of Swedish Fish.    
"If they haven't caught up already," Clint adds, laying down two cards.  "I don't know when Thor will be back on Earth, but there are definitely things on other worlds that will get here without a rainbow bridge.  And they won't be nearly as fun to drink with."

"Tony?"  Pepper's voice is panicked.  It's easy to see why from his expression.  "I didn't tell you so you could start a one-man crusade.  I told you so you would be careful.  Please... if you're going to fight another war, at least do it with SHIELD."  
Tony recoils.  He pets her hand immediately after to make up for it, holds it like a lifeline before pulling her up and bringing her into the pantry.  Once the door shuts, he plants his face in the curve of her neck and lets the words he's been biting back fall into her silk blend shirt.  
"Remember that little poisoning problem I had a while ago?  Created a new element, gave the reactor a super-boost, flew to New York and rescued you?  Good times.  Couldn't have done it if Nick Fury hadn't stopped by and given me a bunch of Dad's old stuff.  Right after he mentioned our not-in-residence god of thunder, who he has also called the reason for Phase 2."  His hands clench hard and it's good thing he's the only one with human strength.  "They  _knew_ what the palladium was doing to me and they didn't give me the alternative until  _they_ needed it."  
"I get it.  You don't trust SHIELD.  Do you trust Clint and Natasha?"  
"With our immediate safety, sure.  And I like them.  But they're agents before friends and I've seen enough of the way SHIELD does things.  Pretending that we're family, that I'm the one making decisions when really I'm just a puppet with blinders who builds cool shit.  Barton stole some footage for me for Foster.  I don't think he remembered what was on it..."  Tony's breath shudders against her collarbone.  "Do you know what Phase 2 was?  It was the energy that made a hole in my airspace directed through the barrel of a gun.  Do you know what you need to make that?  You need a recently discovered element that is capable of taking that much energy without ionizing or melting."

Pepper reads between the confused metaphors and technical rambling and finds the real problem.  "Tony, is this about Obie?"  
"Isn't everything?  If he hadn't... If Iron Man hadn't happened, we wouldn't be here because there wouldn't be so many people trying to take me apart."  
"Alright.  Say you weren't Iron Man.  That you are the egotistical asshole with a pile of money and a knack for designing weapons and nothing else going for you.  Assume you came back from Afghanistan, sold a thousand warheads and never told the Associated Press that you were a superhero."  
"Are you still my girlfriend in this imaginative retelling of my life story?"  
"Well, let's see.  Does Tony-Stark-who-isn't-Iron-Man come back with my drink after leaving me on a roof without a jacket?"  
"Uh. Yes?"  
"Then he can be my boyfriend.  Does he also make me CEO?"  
"Totally.  He's too distracted by his girlfriend to run a business."  Tony's arms drop to her waist.  
"And a year later, not-Iron-Man turns on the TV and sees New York being attacked by aliens.  Someone fires a nuke, it probably says Stark on the side.  No one stops it and we have to host a charity event for the containment and treatment of everyone in the fallout because having your name on the thing that destroys a major city is terrible PR."  
"Hm.  Good thing I'm Iron Man, then."  He wraps his arms around her, sensual instead of scared now.  
"A very good thing," Pepper agrees, snuggling closer.  
"Still not working with SHIELD."  
"Fine."

* * *

 Natasha and Clint bring paper towels and cleaners to help Bruce clean up the tea Tony knocked to the floor.  
"He hasn't enjoyed most of his experiences with SHIELD," she mentions, spraying the stain.  " _I_ thought I made a very good assistant."  
"You 'modeled in Tokyo' and followed him around with a Blackberry.  I could do that," Clint grunts as he presses towels on the damp areas.  
"SHIELD is tracking Centipede?"  Bruce's eyes are still brown, but his voice is rough.  
The two spies look at each other, a long conversation summed up in a few eyebrow twitches.    
"Working on it," Clint sighs.  "There's a ton of shit in this world, and Tony Stark attracts a lot of it.  Nat and I moved in because SHIELD thought someone would try the direct approach.  But hunting an organization like this is much harder than some guy attacking your home and you neutralizing him.  There's recon to do, data to interpret, patterns to find.  Even if the team got something useful out of today, it could be weeks or months before I'm given a target, and chances are we'll need them alive for what they know."  
"But you won't get any information that's not 'relevant' to the mission at hand," says Bruce bitterly.  "And you'll obey the guy with the medals even if he doesn't know what the hell he's doing."  
"Do you know what the S stands for?" asks Natasha suddenly.  "Strategic.  I trust the guy making the strategy.  I know who was leading the team that rescued Pepper, and believe me when I tell you the only people who could have done a better job are in this room."  
Steve stands.  "Agent Romanov, I think I'd like to take you up on that offer now."    
"That's... convenient."  Her eyes narrow in speculation for a brief second.  
"How so?"  
"Since today has no secrets, I suppose I can tell you that I'm going back to D.C. soon.  My stay in Stark Tower hasn't served the purpose it was supposed to."  Natasha's mouth twists.  "You wanna carpool?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now we've hammered the Steve peg into the proper hole.


	9. Experimental by Design

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor is still gone because deus ex deus would solve everyone's problems and that's pretty boring.  
> And space-time recently had more holes than a gopher infested golf course. I kind of doubt that's something that people just forgive and forget.

They don’t sleep until the sun is up. Pepper is only half-pretending that the day’s events have scared her into insomnia. The other half knows that sitting with her face in a pillow means Tony stays with her, telling her all the comforting things he needs to hear. Pepper is not above making him say the same words for six hours if he can start to believe them.  
Finally, forty hours of being awake catches up to him and he slips into exhausted unconsciousness. Pepper pads out of the bedroom and heads to the kitchen. She runs the water in the sink, loud and rushing like yesterday afternoon. She cups it in her hands and drinks, one handful becomes two and three and then the coolness in her stomach curls up and it hurts.

Natasha turns the faucet off for her. In the quiet dawn, the Black Widow is the most dangerous thing in the whole building and somehow Pepper feels better.   
“The longest vacation of my life was forced on me.  After Killian.”  
“The last time I took a vacation, I had to cut off most of my hair because it was a fire hazard.” Natasha sounds a little regretful about that.  
“It looks good now.  Does saving the world make up for it?”  
“Not really. There’s still a lot of red in my ledger.”  
As an accountant in her previous life, Pepper can, with authority, point out the window and say, “I know of at least some black.”  
“I guess.” Natasha smiles a little. “Does it count if everything I do is written in red?”  
“No judgment here.”  
“No, I guess there wouldn’t be. You already think of people as numbers. Quarterly reports, not combat units but still. You understand practicality.” From the Black Widow, it’s a compliment.  
“I don’t have a problem with expediency. As long as it never comes near Tony again.” Pepper feels the heat of anger even if she no longer glows with it. She’s killed two men knowingly and with very real intent. She’s killed so many more because she could have asked Tony not to put on the suit and she didn’t. The body count isn't what keeps her up at night. “How would you like your coffee?”  
Pepper moves to the espresso machine.

-

Tony finds them enjoying croissants one REM cycle later. “What is this new flavor of betrayal?”  
“Breakfast.” Natasha holds out a plate.  
“I don’t like people handing me things,” he tells her automatically.  
“You let Darcy hand you things.”  
“Darcy is an extension of Pepper’s will and Pepper can hand me anything she wants.”  Tony takes a new plate and his Iron Man mug from the cupboard.   
“Steve and I are running away together,” Natasha announces just as Tony starts pouring his coffee.  “Well, I was already leaving.  Steve decided he was too while you were playing Seven Minutes in Heaven.”  She cuts her croissant into neat sections and spears a piece with her fork.  
“Why are you leaving?  It’s not because of Tony, is it?  I told you, you can sue him for harassment even if he is Iron Man."  Pepper frowns.  "That's not how you eat that.”    
“I was allowed to stay here because the Tower is a big shiny target.  It’s been six months and no one has taken a bite.  I gotta go where the work is.  And I don't want butter on my guns.”

“How did you corrupt Steve into going with you?”    
Natasha gives Tony a pitying look.  “Your girlfriend, his friend was kidnapped by a terrorist organization that does experiments on people.  You understand that he's a bit sensitive about these things, right?  He volunteered to go.”  
“I suppose I can’t get upset that Captain America is defending my honor.”  Pepper takes the coffeepot away from Tony and replaces it with a pastry.  “Even if it does mean my house will be overrun with scientists.”  
“You tell Fury," Tony jabs the danish at Natasha, "that I’m invoicing him for hours lost to emotional distress.”    
“You’re the one who redesigned the flying battlestation for him, for free I might add.”   
“That thing was lucky it lasted as long as it did.  A football field made of death floating around at thirty thousand feet with nothing but turbines to keep hundreds of tons of lies and metal in the air.  Completely hazardous.  All I did was make it less likely to fall out of the sky.  It was a public service.”

* * *

Steve pulled Bruce away, not that Jane has noticed, to discuss his experiments to create and then counteract the serum.  
Bruce thinks about the days he and Betty spent poring over cell models, studying irradiated mice, figuring out how to strengthen the structures and hasten the replacement of dead and degraded tissue.  He thinks about the work he did to impress his girlfriend's father, all for a lie.  
Bruce is not comfortable with the conversation, but Steve should know.  

“Did you just say you washed your blood cells with flower juice?”  Darcy kicks off of Jane’s desk in the general direction of Bruce’s.  She scooches the last three feet and plants her elbows on a pile of folders.  “That sounds way too hippie new-age to be considered an experiment.”  
“It was,” Bruce counters.  “I looked at it under a microscope.”  
“Is that like Mythbusters saying the difference between screwing around and science is writing stuff down?  Because Jane says that’s not real science either, so I don’t know who to trust any more.”  
"What's Mythbusters?"  
"One of the greatest TV shows ever."  "An attempt to get people interested in science by blowing crap up."  
Darcy eyes Bruce over the rim of her glasses.  "Blowing crap up is how Iron Man sparked a 17% increase of undergraduate enrollment in STEM fields."  
"I wasn't teaching at the time, so I wouldn't know.  I thought you were in the humanities."  
"Political science major.  I can tell you what's actually wrong with society and use facts to back it up," she explains to Steve.  "For example.  The Western world is slightly more unified after that whole alien thing, but also more conflicted because most of superheroes are American and America has a bad habit of... um...  Right.  You guys were doing something important.  So I'm gonna go and let you get back to that.  Maybe next time I'll tell you about the Berlin Wall without a foot in my mouth.  Bye."  Darcy flees to the safety of Jane's bubble of obliviousness.  
"Berlin Wall?"  
"Thirty year long historical event."  Bruce shrugs.  "Not my forte.  It went up before I was born and down while I was studying quarks.  I think I remember going to a party with Betty..."  
"I'll just look into it later," Steve interjects, pulling out his notebook.


	10. Sincere Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sin·cere (adj.)  
> free from pretense or deceit; proceeding from genuine feelings.  
> vague attempt to rhyme with 'reindeer'.

“No, Happy, I’m not going to fire you.”    
Darcy sets the Nobu box down and tries not to look fireable either.  From the smile Pepper flashes her, it seems to be working.   
“I understand that terrorists do not fall under the purview of regular security.  Do you?”  Pepper switches the phone to her other ear.  “As your friend and a responsible business owner, I refuse to move you back to full-time until your PT is done.  Happy… look, I’m sorry _another_ one made an appointment too, but I’m not blaming you or anyone else for it.  -no, that is not the trauma talking.”  

Darcy pulls out a pen and scribbles something on her hand.  She shows it to Pepper and gets a grateful nod in return.  She knocks on the table and says in her best assistant voice, “Miss Potts, the doctor is here.”  
“Alright Happy, I have to go.  Thanks for the call.”  Pepper turns off her phone with a sigh of relief.  “So, where is this doctor?” she asks playfully.  
“He’s in the kitchen showing Tony how to make eggs.  Apparently, a man who can make a new element should understand how proteins unfold.”  
Pepper opens her lunch and coos a little over the perfectly presented fish.  “And the food I ordered for them?”  
“In the fridge.  I saw Bruce staring at it, so I don’t think the lessons are going so good.”  
“Alright.  You can go eat your lunch now.  I’m going enjoy mine while wiping Jarvis off the face of the Earth.  Cue it up, please and remind me to turn on my phone in sixty minutes, J.”    
“Of course miss, but wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess?” Jarvis plays the movie clip over the speaker and Darcy is both delighted and kind of horrified to see Civ 5 projected on the wall.  Pepper catches her expression before she can school her face into something less 'SkyNet is imminent and he sounds like a Bond villain'.    
“Yes, we’re playing for global domination.  It’s kind of tradition at this point.”  She nibbles on a dumpling as her laptop loads.  “And since this game is won with decisions instead of mouse-eye coordination, he can’t cheat.”  
“It’s hardly cheating if your hands get tired and mine don’t exist, Miss Potts.”    
"Never let him convince you to play a game with him just because it's pretty."  
“You play other games too?” Darcy asks.  “Is it fun?”  
“By most definitions, I suppose.  I would rather play a game than take apart its code, but there is no quantitative difference between winning and losing to me.”  
“Such a liar.  You enjoy winning just like you enjoy sarcasm.  I used to buy him games because I thought I could figure out how much of a person he was,” says Pepper.  “I’d watch him play through, try to assign some meaning to the choices he made, but in the end I couldn’t say how much of any decision was person vs program.  Now it's because he works 24/7 and I can’t give him a salary.  I wouldn't even know how to fill out his W-2."

* * *

Pepper has Darcy distract Natasha while she takes Clint shopping for a proper see-you-later-if-neither-of-us-die present.  Darcy thinks her boss is crazy to assume that it will actually work.  Still, Darcy has a real-live benefits plan now, so she may as well test it out.  
"I need your help."  
"Do you need it to look like an accident?"  Natasha gives her rifle one last wipe before returning it to its case and picking up the next one.    
Darcy's nose wrinkles at the smell of solvent but she soldiers on.  "Captain America thinks I'm crazy and rude."  
There's no sound but the soft click of metal as Natasha takes apart her weapon.  
"I'm not trying to be rude, it's just very hard to talk to him like a normal person.  Speaking of rude..."  
"How is it hard to talk to him?"  
"I was five when the Cold War officially ended, but there was that brief revival of Captain America being  _everywhere,_ telling us not to do drugs, not to bully kids 'cause they were different, the same PSAs as always, but coming from Major Patriotism because well, our parents are baby boomers."  
"And they grew up hearing nothing but 'daddy might not have come home if Captain America hadn't saved us'.  I can see how you might be a little awkward talking to him."  
"It's not just that.   _Steve_ is nothing like Captain America.  The one I know from the books and the TV spots was a patronizing jerk with a terrible CGI shield and he needed styrofoam muscles.  I can only talk to Steve for like ten seconds before I remember and freak out.  And he's really really ridiculously good-looking, which _doesn't_ help."  
Darcy suspects Natasha is laughing at her behind her serene superspy facade.    
"Would tazing him make you feel more at ease?"  
Definitely laughing at her. _  
_

_-_

Superspies are _weird_. 

Darcy is watching Jarvis' favorite A.I. movies because Jarvis is awesome and can both indulge her binge-watching and explain why shit would or would not go down the way it does on screen.  She hears someone rummaging around in the fridge, and then the sounds of someone assembling a sandwich.  It might even be a hero.  Which is funny and also really appetizing so she stands up just in time to see something nail Black Widow right in the face. 

Nothing explodes.

Natasha has a gun she pulled from somewhere, possibly the mayo jar, but it's pointed at the ceiling and not at an army of invaders so there's that.  She casually re-holsters her weapon and bends to examine the something.   
The thing turns out to be a a small gift box with no brand name.  Darcy's desire for food overrides any reservations she has about interrupting the courtship rituals of the heavily-armed and slightly crazy.   
"What's in the box?"  
"Nothing."  
"That's kinda lame."  
"Nothing yet," Natasha corrects.  She gets sharp around the edges and abandons her sandwich to slip into the stairwell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I think Black Widow would have to chase down and beat that necklace out of Clint. A kind of merry war, but war all the same.


	11. The Best That We Can Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> skipping to the end of Disney's _Cap 2: Soldiers on Ice_

Tony and Pepper are having a 'private' call with the President.  About Captain America.  Darcy sometimes has trouble believing this is actually her life.  Pepper apologetically but firmly sent her out of the room, but not before Tony opens with: "I'm pretty sure saving your life gets me at least enough pull to ask 'what the hell, Matt?'"

So she's indulging her love-hate relationship with the internet.  Right now it’s mostly hate because of her morbid fascination with the theories on why Captain America is on a Wanted list.    
Some people say it's the high fructose corn syrup or the MSG or the GMOs or mad cow disease making him crazy.  Those people are probably still pissed Captain America is pro-vaccine (seriously, looking at pre-serum Steve Rogers, who even doubted that?).  Some people insist he was replaced with a Nazi clone who has finally been activated to his natural Nazi programming.  Although what that makes the other guy on that overpass, with his Snape hair and Terminator arm, who knows.  
She's not sure how much of these posts are thoughts people actually have versus trolltastic click-bait, but she kind of wishes she could sic the Hulk on them all.  She sighs and moves on to the next page, thankful Steve is mostly unaware of the mindtrap that is social media.

Then she finds his personal information, as well as her bosses’, friends’ and assorted aliens’, plastered all over the most visited websites ever, and she flips the fuck out.  
“JARVIS!”  Even to her own ears she sounds screechy.  “What the shit is this?”  
There’s a millisecond’s pause while Jarvis’ very impressive processing power works its magic.  “Director Fury has authorized the immediate declassification and publication of SHIELD files.”  
"To the _internet_?!"  
"It would appear so.  I am downloading and scanning all content uploaded from that I.P. but I believe I have found the relevant information."  
Darcy stares as Jarvis pops one document after another on the screen, some small bits highlighted and they all say the same thing.  HYDRA.  
“Well.  Fuck.”

At least now she knows why Steve is a fugitive. 

* * *

Steve is not polite enough to take angry calls like a man, super or otherwise.  Tony had thought Steve's old-man sensibilities meant he would pick up the goddamn phone when it rings.  
There are many many burning questions, most of them have nothing to do with the uploaded files.

Tony's top 5 are (in order): -The fuck just happened?  -Man with a plan my ass, what were you thinking? -Is Fury really dead? -Did we really almost sell our souls to HYDRA? and -When are you... Are you coming back?  
The automatic message system has no answers.

Pepper is very quiet, not that anyone notices when Tony is so very loud.  Bruce moves to sit next to her, like maybe that calm will spill over.  He peeks at her laptop, which has has _Stark, Anthony E_ 's file open.  Of course.  
"How is it?" he asks.  
"Not terrible, I guess.  There's not a lot in here that Tony hasn't told the world himself at one point or another."  She scrolls down.  There are dozens of files linked to words and names and Pepper has been trying to make herself look at them but she can't.  "What do you think this means... for next time?  Are we going to finish the war Steve started?"  She looks at Tony but he's moved his chaos to the lab; it's obvious what his answer is anyway.  And it will be like watching him fly into that hole all over again.  
Bruce decides against reminding her that Steve didn't start this.  "You're the one who told me being a hero is hard."  
"Is that what you are now?"   
"Almost as much as you."  
"I'm not a hero.  I'm _incredibly_ angry at Captain America, which I'm pretty sure makes me the bad guy."  She clenches her laptop.  "I don't know if I can do it, Bruce," she whispers.  "I don't think I can do the right thing when the easy thing, the SANE thing..."  
"Do you trust Tony to do the right thing?"  
She nods, warily.  
"Most of the world does too.  Now," he adds with a wry look.  
Pepper's lips quirk up despite herself.  "You think I should stop judging myself on choices I haven't made?"  
"A little.  Mostly I was hoping we could get Indian tonight, so I need your vote."  He shuts her laptop.  

She doesn't open it again until tomorrow, and when she does, she'll bypass the files on _Stane, Obadiah,_ _Vanko, Ivan A_ and _Fury, Nicholas J_ to go straight to the one named _Winter Soldier_.

-

Tomorrow, a package will arrive.  In it will be a note telling them that Steve is looking for the Winter Soldier.  Underneath, in different handwriting, will be two phone numbers and a hospital room number in Virginia.    
The package will also contain a backpack with one wing.  Just one.  Tony will abscond with it immediately.  After ten hours of designing and fabricating, he will remember to send the first phone number a text that reads: _i forgive you, but you're going to have to make it up to pepp.  NO STRAWBERRIES_  

Pepper will contact the hospital and make sure the invoice goes to Stark Industries.  She'll get Darcy to send flowers and anything else two ex-soldiers might need to track down an ex-assassin.

* * *

The first time Steve and Sam catch up to Bucky, Steve lets him know that Stark Tower is the best place for him to go.  When he’s ready.  It’s where Iron Man and the Hulk live and it’s kind of home to Steve now.  He's about to say more, but he gets knocked into a dumpster.  
Sam tells him no one likes a monologuing hero before offering him a hand up.    
Bucky is long gone.


End file.
